The ongoing battle between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took another step forward.
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District replaced Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District earlier this year. Since the new board has taken over, we’ve learned a lot about the board’s plans to make changes, including some major changes to procedures across the resort. Now, we have an update on new regulations for monorail inspections.
On May 11th, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 1305, a bill that authorizes the Florida Department of Transportation to inspect Disney’s monorail system.
The bill was worded to allow the Florida Department of Transportation to adopt minimum safety standards for a very specific type of transportation in a very specific location: “any governmentally or privately owned fixed-guideway transportation systems operating in this state which are located within an independent special district created by a local act which have boundaries within two contiguous counties.”
This bill will also allow the Department of Transportation to suspend the monorail service whenever inspectors survey any raised portion of the railway, which could potentially cause extended monorail closures.
The Disney World monorail system was exempt from state inspections in the past, as Disney had its own inspection team. Per the Orlando Business Journal, many major theme parks in Florida are exempt from state inspections and conduct their own safety inspections.
Although Disney has not commented since DeSantis signed the bill, Disney lawyers recently amended their lawsuit to say that the monorail and voided development agreements offer more evidence of the “targeted campaign of government retaliation” by DeSantis and others. Stay tuned for more updates.
Decoding the Accusations in Disney’s Lawsuit Against Ron DeSantis
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It used to be, if you asked, you could ride up front on the monorail with the driver. Then, one morning,
the cast member that directed the monorail traffic, decided to go out to breakfast. A new driver, without
direction, crashed his monorail into the rear of another monorail. The crash killed the driver and that
was the end of riding up front.
Once again, a member of a party that supposedly wants smaller government is increasing state control over private enterprise and increasing government spending.
How can this not be targeted? The bill might as well have Mickey Mouse as its heading. So who pays for these inspections now? Floridians do. If you think Disney operates unsafe rides, where is the evidence for that? And if they start shutting rides down to punish Disney, that will go over very poorly with Disney guests. Who will know exactly who to blame. And if those guests stay home, you may think Disney will be the only organization to pay the price, but the main reason there is low taxes in Florida is because tourists pay them. If they stay away, there will be a price paid by Florida residents.